Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Amsterdam Day 2: Wasted Morning


Anne Frank House already has a huge line!

Anne Frank House line goes around the corner.


Admission Rates for the Anne Frank House: normal price 8,50 euros.

Day two in Amsterdam was supposed to be more promising than day 1. I didn't get up until 10 am though; I hadn't quite converted timezones yet. My first stop was to be the anne frank house. When I got there the line was already huge, stretching around the building. Forget this I thought, the line will probably be shorter later. So I left deciding to return later in the day.

I then went off to visit the Dam area. On my way to the Dam I decided to try haring as the dutch call it. It's uncooked cleaned herring with some salt mixture.
Hey what's this? Let me try it....

The famous Dutch herring minus onions....

About as far as I got... look at the fish! Yuck!

I was told older folks eat it plain while the younger folks eat it with bread, onions and pickles. I chose the bread and pickles. It was gross. I did not like it at all. It was slimy and cold and the texture did not agree with me, not to mention the taste. I should say I don't like raw meats in general, I don't like sushi and I don't like sashimi. When I was in tokyo ,I tried it and while it didn't taste good to me I could at least finish the sashimi there. I could not finish the herring. It was that bad to me. I ate the pickles and the bread untouched by the fish and threw the rest away. Later I was told that this dish is something of a delicacy. Well maybe your herring is a delicacy and an acquired taste but it still tastes nasty, No offense. I believe the raw herring came about from the old days (no refrigerators) where the raw herring could be stored for a long time and still eaten.

A few Dam area pictures...

Entering the Dam area...


Monument at the Dam.

The Palace was under construction. It opened at 12:00 noon and I was one of the first people in line but the line wasn't moving. Do people here actually work? The lines for everything here are worse than Disneyland.

After that I ended up back in the red light district. Hey.... no, I didn't go back to get hookers. I thought it would look different during the day and it's right next to the Dam area. For whatever reason I thought the girls would be all gone now. Nope, most were gone but a few do work during the day. Weird.

Oude Kerk

Fat hookers just across from Oude Kerk.

Anyway this is Oude Kerk Amsterdam. It's the oldest church in Amsterdam I think and all around it is the red light district. I thought it was funny that just across from the church were windows with hookers in them, they were all fat and black. This church became rich back in the day when people were more serious about going to heaven. Sailors wanted to go to heaven too. This church was interesting in that it allowed sailors to come in the night before and confess or whatever before they took off in the morning. The sailors would come in and say the sins they were about to commit: boozing, whoring, gambling, the whole nine yards. The preist would say ok, write up a letter, presumably to god, and then take money from the sailor. This would allow the sailor to still go to heaven. You know, back in the day the Catholic church would let you go to heaven by buying your way in.


A sex worker leaving to go home.



Another walk by taping of the ladies working in the red light district. I got caught again!!


I got bored of the red light district so I started heading back to the Anne Frank house. Here's some crap I ate and things I saw on the way back there.

Febo Burger.... Febo is a fast food chain where you buy stuff from little compartments. It's not good but I was on the go.

More Febo food

Vanila Ice Cream - Yes the Dutch eat ice cream in their cold weather. Crazy! I tried it, it's home made basically. It was very rich and not airy. It was also kind of warm for ice cream. Quite good

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